Hallelujah; the call to celebrate Jehovah as almighty and as
now dwelling in Jerusalem

Psalms 135 and 136 celebrate Jehovah, who has delivered Israel
and now dwells in Jerusalem, and give thanks to Him whose mercy has
endured for ever the Creator of all things in goodness who first
delivered them, and remembered them to redeem them when brought low.

Psalm 135 is a very characteristic Psalm, giving a remarkable
key to the interpretation of the book, and linking it with the early
statements of Jehovah as to His relationship to Israel, so as to
bind together their history in one whole. The subject is Hallelujah
praise the name of Jehovah. He is good: it is pleasant to do it; for
He has chosen Jacob and Israel for His peculiar treasure. He is then
(v. 6) celebrated as the Almighty God, doing what He pleased, daily
disposing of creation; then as He who executed judgment on the
oppressors of Israel, and freed them, and drove out the heathen and
gave them their land. Now comes His name in connection with Israel
and in contrast with idols; and the two passages, in one of which He
first took up Israel for ever under the name of Jehovah, and, in the
other, prophetically announced their deliverance when they should
have wholly and utterly failed, are cited from Exodus 3: 15,
Deuteronomy 32: 36. The first takes the name of the Lord God of
their fathers, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, when He sends Moses
to deliver them, and declares this is His name for ever, His
memorial to all generations, and then promises deliverance and
bringing into the land; then He takes the name of Jehovah. The
second is in the prophetic song of Moses, when he has drawn out to
them their picture as apostate, their spot not the spot of God's
children, when they forsook God who made them, and provoked Him to
jealousy with strange gods, and Jehovah hid His face from them, and,
but for the fear of man's pride, had made the remembrance of them to
cease from among men. Then, when they should be helpless and
hopeless in themselves, Jehovah would judge His people, and repent
Himself concerning His servants, execute judgments on the heathen,
and then make them rejoice with His people. So that these two verses
give the first deliverance and purpose of God, and the judgment and
ways of God in the last days, to which the psalms have brought
us. Thus they give a clear key to the application of the psalms
themselves. Then we have (v. 15-18) the present judgment of the
idols spoken of in Deuteronomy 32, and to which they had fallen
away. The psalm closes with the summons to those already generally
specified the divers parts of Israel and all that fear Jehovah to
bless Jehovah; the house of Israel, of Aaron, of Levi, and all that
fear Jehovah; and this now out of Zion, even Jehovah, of whom now
they could say that He dwelt in Jerusalem.